Z²

Well what can I say about possibly one of the busiest guys in music! I have pretty much most his music including the Strapping Young Lad years, so could this be a biased review or an honest one? Recently I have been following three bands - meaning pretty much getting all their back catalogue. Glass Hammer, Magma and Devin Townsend to me have created original sounding music and consistently keep releasing albums that never sound like they are sounding samey or not creating a new sound. When people say Glass Hammer are a modern day Yes, well does that mean they do good sounding Symphonic keyboard led sounds? Because the tunes themselves are vastly different from Yes which is a very important point.

So back to Devin's Z2, and yes unmistakably it is rather than any new type of sound it continues the same Townsend signature which is the Wall of Sound over many layers, but tune wise it's just so obviously different. Disc 1 is Sky Blue and any Epicloud fan will lap this up straight away as Pop Metal made like this is always going to be awesome. His style just keeps on being refined and tweaked to feel new but always that epic layered and addictive energy I so love in Devin's music.

So Disc 2 Dark Matters or Ziltoid the Omniscient part 2 is of the crazy and scary preference like the first Ziltoid the Omniscient album. One has to listen to this style so many times as I am just in awe at how much he crams into his songs - I mean the amount of instruments, samples, effects and background music in most of these songs is just incredible and hard to appreciate unless you listen to it multiple times and the fact that all this is thought up by pretty much one man is just mind blowing.

There are no unessesary fillers and you are just absorbed into his mind for Two hours and are just left breathless and wonder how a guy who seems to have written so many songs over the last couple of years and countless albums before them can keep on succeeding with quality of such a high standard just baffles my mind. So I should give this album five, but the problem is and it's a good problem is that his earlier albums like Terria and Ocean Machine and all of the Infinity experience is what I call perfect in every conceivable way stops this being a five, but believe me when I say this shows that Devin Townsend is definitely not slowing down and dipping in quality in any way.

I'll be seeing him on the Z2 tour and to hear this album live is going to be a mind blowing experience! So just keep on Progging and may good music live forever.